Research on the relationship between internet use and grades in the US

a few interesting points from the monitor on psychology looking at "Children and the Internet: It's fun, but does it make you smarter? www.apa.org/monitor/nov07/itsfun.html :

"In her research, published in a 2006 Developmental Psychology (Vol. 42, No. 3, pages 429–435) special section on Internet use, Jackson studied 140 urban children as part of HomeNetToo, a longitudinal field study designed to assess the effects of Internet use in low-income families. Most of the child participants were African American and around 13 years old; 75 percent lived in single-parent households with an average annual income of $15,000 or less. The children were also underperforming in school, scoring in the 30th percentile on standardized reading tests at the beginning of the study.

Jackson and her colleagues provided each family with a home computer and free Internet access. The researchers automatically and continuously recorded the children's Internet use, and participants completed periodic surveys and participated in home visits.

They found that children who used the Internet more had higher scores on standardized reading tests after six months, and higher grade point averages one year and 16 months after the start of the study than did children who used it less.

"A big challenge to researchers here is that we are dealing with a major generational gap—we are still struggling to catch up with evolving technology and how young people are using it," says Elisheva Gross, PhD, of the Children's Digital Media Center at the University of California, Los Angeles.

The publication lag of scholarly research is also at odds with a technology that's changing and expanding by the day.

"Especially when you talk about books published on this topic, they are historical documents at this point," says Gross.

Research in Africa by Rocare has come to the same conclusion. All points that "Everything bad is good for you : how today's popular culture is actually making us smarter" by Steven Johnson. Hopefully more evidence like this will demonstrate the complexity of understanding how the Internet is having an impact on our lives and society and help to debunk some of the recent myths about how the Internet is having a detrimental effect on children.

of "open uppers" and "closed downers"

At a recent workshop to help unpack the issue of the impact of public access to ICTs, jointly sponsored by IDRC and Gates, a few key insights were shared in terms of process and ideas:
- the definition of public access is a complex issue that is charged with inherent meaning (eg from publicly funded to a public space). Getting at those definitions helps to navigate the ideological waters that are prevalent in any discussion about this issue.
- at the core of the impact of public access is the issue of whether one thinks we are in the throes of a paradigm shift (in which case trying to measure change through the lens of benefits and costs related to public access is incredibly complex and possibly futile, but where the potential benefits of public access are enormous) or whether we are simply dealing with an evolution in efficiency in an existing mode of production, where information is a good, either publicly provided or privately traded (in which case public access can be measured against other access modalities, many of them private).
- Richard Heeks reminded us that in workshops there are generally "closed-downers" (i.e people who want to close debate on an issue and get on with the work) and "open-uppers" (people who want to get back to define the "what and the "why" and re-open debates that were perceived by some as closed). There are generally tensions between those two groups, but they are both necessary to developing a productive research agenda
- Discussing tensions in the research area you are looking at (impact of public access) is a simple way of uncovering some of the challenges to undertaking research
- Mike Best pointed to the importance of doing impact assessments with an impact, i.e. allowing one to gain from research findings and improve the field of study (eg improving women's participation in a telecentre once the researcher finds out its lacking)

A Swan Song

It's the last day at IDRC of one of the great thinkers, implementers and motivators in ICT4D at IDRC: Steve Song. He will be leaving his position of programme manager of Acacia and Connectivity Africa, to take up a fellowship with the Shuttleworth Foundation (of Ubuntu fame). I worked for Steve for several years. He is a consummate techie but also the epitome of the renaissance man: he can debate a telecommunications regulator, discuss the gender implications of mobiles, make a mean caipirinha and renovate your house. Although he hasn't left a big footprint in the academic literature, anyone who wants to take action on or research issues in the area of ICT4D should ask for his opinion. He is also quite passionate about a few issues, most notably open source and its potential for developing countries. The move to the Shuttleworth Foundation should be seen in that light as well.
I will sorely miss him, as he was an inspiration as well as a good friend. However, if I was Telkom South Africa right now, I'd be a little worried.

In the beginning...

Well I've succumbed to the idea of a blog. Never one to be an innovator or early adopter, I let the idea stew in my mind for a while and finally felt there were more reasons to do it, than not to. I'm still not certain whether this will be more personal, miscellaneous or work related, but I imagine I'll find my way. Alea Jacta Est.

Maybe I should start with a little bit about me. I'm a 36 year old Canadian (with French citizenship as well, by way of my mother), who works at the International Development Research Centre ( http://www.idrc.ca ) in Ottawa Canada ( map ) . I'm mainly interested in new technologies, digital culture and, more specifically, socio-economic research issues related to those areas. My professional life focusses on the intersection between those areas and development, however I do have a personal interest in that as well. Other interests I have, which I generally won't bore you with, include medieval history, world politics, hockey and travel.